I had to read “The Old Man and the Sea” for 9th grade English. Every day I would remind my teacher (who was AWESOME) how much I hated it, often citing several reasons why. My teacher seemed to pity and be amused by me at the same time

Could have been worse… reading literature in the original can be hard and bothersome work, but being stuck with a “modernized” version can be incredibly painful.

Imagine having to read an “adaptation” of Hamlet, with all of the subtleties of the language stripped down to about sixth-grade-American standard, and all of the characters’ motivations reduced to the simplest burlesques.

In trying to make Hamlet “accessible” they turned it into just another stupid chick-and-Dane story.